TREATECH

TreaTech is a Swiss cleantech company founded in 2015 by EPFL engineers.
Our team has a strong know-how in heterogeneous catalysis, process and energy systems integration, and multi-objectives modeling and optimization.

We are very proud to be supported by outstanding companies and institutions.
Our current focus is on the development of a demonstration unit to prove our technology's potential.

Our Mission

Our mission is to address the increasing problem of clean water availability in all regions of the world by creating a low-cost, environmentally friendly liquid waste solution resulting in a contaminants-free water stream.

Our team

Management team

Frederic Juillard

Founder & CEO

Frederic is a Swiss-French engineer and entrepreneur. He completed his Master’s degree at the Swiss Institute of Technology (EPFL) and UC Berkeley.

He was the co-founder of Naphtis, a project dealing with biofuel production from biomass waste, where he acquired experience in feasibility demonstration and prototyping, as well as the skills required to move from an academic project to a business-oriented organization.

Frederic worked for two years as a scientific collaborator at IPESE group at the Swiss Institute of Technology (EPFL) before he incorporated TreaTech in October 2015.

Dr. Gaël Peng

Co-founder & CTO

Gaël is a Swiss-French chemical engineer. He completed his PhD in Energy Research, with specialization in bioenergy and heterogeneous catalysis, at the Paul Scherrer Institute and Swiss Institute of Technology (EPFL).
He acquired experience in the development of high-pressure processes and in biomass conversion technologies. In May 2016, he joined TreaTech as CTO to lead the technology validation phase.

Dr. Alberto Mian

Co-founder

Alberto is an Italian mechanical engineer. He completed his PhD in Energy Research, with specialization in numerical optimization of chemical and energy systems design at the Swiss Institute of Technology (EPFL).
He acquired experience in software modeling and optimization of industrial systems, including renewable energy technologies.

Alberto filed TreaTech’s patent in early 2015 and was the first to join the team as a co-founder to lead the technology optimization phase and plant scale-up.

Raquel Zambrano Varela

Lead Engineer

Raquel is a chemical engineer from Spain. She obtained a Master in Chemical Engineering & Biotechnology at EPFL after she graduated from the Universidad de Sevilla and Aalto University in Helsinki.

She previously worked at Holdigaz Services and INERCO where she acquired numerous skills regarding process engineering and project management. Her mission at TreaTech is to conduct the valorization of extracted mineral salts into valuable Phosphorus building blocks.

Advisory board

Dr. Jean-Pierre Rosat

With extensive experience in creating and developing high tech companies, Jean-Pierre has co-founded more than eight start-ups, made three trade-sales to public companies, and is well-versed in fund-raising and setting-up new projects. He has been previously CEO of Cytion SA, Apoxis SA and picoDrill SA.

Laura Borel

Laura has a BA in Human Biology and an M.S. in Management, Science and Engineering from Stanford University. She is an experienced entrepreneur and operator in the field of health wearables. She sold her first company to Jawbone where she lead the company’s largest software release and then headed their eCommerce platform.

Jean-Jacques Miauton

Mr. Jean-Jacques Miauton is Chief Executive Officer & Director at Swiss Madeness Solutions Group SA. He is on the Board of Directors at Romande Energie Holding SA, CDM Hotels & Restaurants SA, Codethic SA, RAK Composites. He was previously Chairman of Getaz Romang Holding SA, and also served on the board at Décision SA.

Marco Brunazzo

Marco is an engineer who combines deep financial and business planning expertise with solid technical understanding. He worked in a UK high-tech start-up before joining PMI in 2006 where he held several positions in financial management and business planning. Since 2012 he has been a key member of the PMI M&A and Corporate Planning Team, and joined PM Equity Partner as Investment Manager in 2015.

Dr. Martin Brandenberger

Martin is an environmental engineer. He completed his PhD degree in Energy Research at the Paul Scherrer Institute and EPFL. He has been working for several years in the wastewater treatment industry, where he has been involved in the design, optimisation and construction of wastewater treatment plants. Martin is representing Pöyry as an expert with a deep knowledge of TreaTech’s treatment technology. Pöyry is an international consulting and engineering company, which has realized more than 2000 water and wastewater projects around the world in the last decade.

Scientific board

Prof. Jeremy Luterbacher

Co-founder

Jeremy is a young professor who recently returned to EPFL as a Tenure-Track Assistant Professor and head of the Laboratory for Sustainable and Catalytic Processing. He graduated from EPFL and MIT in 2007 and pursued his doctoral studies at Cornell University, where he worked on biomass pretreatment in high-pressure CO2-water environments combined with fluorescence imaging. He then moved to University of Wisconsin-Madison as a postdoctoral scholar.

Prof. Daniel Favrat

Daniel got his Mechanical Engineering degree from EPFL in 1972 and his PhD also from EPFL. He then spent 12 years in industrial research laboratories in Canada and Switzerland. From 1988 to 2013, he was full professor and director of the Industrial Energy Systems Laboratory (LENI) at EPFL. During that period he was successively director of the Institute of Energy and director of the Institute of Mechanical Engineering. From August 2013 he works at EPFL Energy Center first as director ad interim and now as director technologies.

Prof. Suren Erkman

Suren studied philosophy and biology at the University of Geneva and earned his PhD in Environmental Sciences from the University of Technology at Troyes. After working for several years as a science and business journalist, Suren founded several companies (Sofies, ICAST, EIC, ROI). Suren is also a professor and head of the industrial ecology group at the University of Lausanne (IDYST).

Prof. Jerry W. King

Jerry has been involved in critical fluid technology for over 50 years, particularly in the application of SFE, SFC, and related pressurized fluid technologies as applied to foodstuffs, lipid substrates, natural products, and renewable biomass. This has included reaction chemistry, the use of critical fluids in analytical chemistry, and materials modifications. He has published over 250 papers primarily in this area and various other aspects of separation science. Formerly he has worked in industry, at the USDA-ARS center in Peoria, IL, Los Alamos National Lab, and is an Emeritus/Adjunct Professor at the University of Arkansas.

Prof. François Marechal

François holds a process engineering degree (1986) and a PhD from University of Liège in Belgium. In 2001, he moved to Swiss Institute of Technology (EPFL) and has been nominated in 2013 Adjunct Professor in the Mechanical Engineering Institute of EPFL where he is heading the Industrial Process and Energy Systems Engineering group (IPESE). François is conducting research in the field of the analysis and the design of sustainable energy systems. His activities are focusing on the development of computer aided methods applying process integration and optimization techniques. He has produced more than 150 scientific papers in the field of energy efficiency in the industry, industrial ecology and sustainable energy systems in urban areas.